Carr uses a quote by Richard Foreman to express his own thoughts " we risk turning into pancake people spread wide and hind as we connect to that vast network of information accessed by the touch of a button" (Carr 101) to simplify that the overestimation of knowledge derived from computers is giving us artificial knowledge. We are using the internet and gaining and immeasurable amount of information and at our finger tips and he argues that this is bad because it will spread us out mentally and change the way we think and process information, to an almost robotic manner and by doing so losing our humanity.
Caldwell states in his essay "The platforms of social media is built around weak sis"(Caldwell 174) . That this is why a revolution cannot happen on social media because strong ties are needed to form a group who are willing to put themselves on the front line where there is a chance of getting hurt. "our acquaintances not our friends are our greatest source of new ideas and information" (Caldwell 174),with these weak ties we are able to gather New thoughts and ideas but unable to get them to commit to a cause which doesn't have an impact on themselves or which requires heavy involvement.I believe that both Scars and gladness opinion are correct and also intertwined we are becoming spread thin like "pancakes" because of the vast wealth of information and social media where we are enamored with "weak tie relationships". We can have thousands of acquaintances on social media but ignore friends in real life, while spending hours on social media relinquishing our ability to create strong and meaningful relationships (strong tie relationship) .
We branch out looking for "weak tie relationships" because of our need for new information and ideas. "And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski" (Carr 92).He is explaining that the internet has been decreasing his ability to concentrate on information for a certain amount of time because there is a vast wealth of knowledge,he can find anything he wants to know about by a simple Google search which takes less than a few seconds.
His brain has been changed by the internet to require a constant stimulus of information. Backbone activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice" (Caldwell 176).He means that on social media, yes a change can happen but not on the scale of a revolution, while on social media people are not connected to those weak ties relationship so they only involve themselves if little participation is required or if they aren't in any danger. Where a simple like or share on Backbone Twitter or Mainstream means they participated and hey can go along their daily routines a revolution takes a lot more where you have to put your life on hold and potentially putting yourself in danger.
While people minds are changed in the way we process and skim through information I think it has reflected in activism we no longer concentrate on things which should demanding our urgent attention because there is more news which is coming out which shifts our focus to other things and with the click of a mouse we can share, like or voice our concerns and move on to the next thing without having to leave the room the internet as changed the way we think in that we believe that by doing these simple things we can continue living our lives and fight for a cause or revolution at the same time, but a lot of focus and concentration is needed And the internet isn't built to facilitate this type but instead to share,manage,gain and organize. Scars and Gladness essays both voice their concerns of human beings increasing dependency of technology .
